Chigiri oku koto koso sara ni nakarishika kanete omoishi wakare naraneba

English Translation

Any vow to meet
never did we get to make,
not a word at all—
for this was not a parting
I had thought of long before.

Meaning

We made no promise at all to meet again, for this was not a parting I had foreseen.

Commentary

Book Nine Parting Poems 880

Headnote: "Sent to a woman when I suddenly left the capital and went far away."
This is the second poem of the sequence on partings where the time of return cannot be promised. Because the departure was sudden, the speaker writes to the woman left in the capital, there was no chance at all to promise a reunion. According to the headnote, it was sent to a woman when he suddenly left the capital for a distant place.
The author's name has not come down to us.
The scene is the sudden departure from the capital for a distant place, and the place is a distant land away from the capital.
The direct occasion was his sudden departure from the capital for a distant place.

The first line, "chigiri oku," means "to make a promise beforehand." It refers to a promise to meet again.
In the second line, "koto koso sara ni," the particle "koso" singles out the promise, and "sara ni" pairs with the negative to mean "not at all."
The third line, "nakarishika," means "there was none," closing in "shika," the perfective form of the past auxiliary "ki," in response to "koso," and the poem breaks here.
The fourth line, "kanete omoishi," means "that I had foreseen."
The last line, "wakare naraneba," means "since it was not such a parting," placing the reason for the lack of a promise at the end by inversion. Where the preceding poem gives the impermanence of the world as the reason for making no promise, this poem gives the suddenness of the parting, treating a parting without promise from a different cause. It also pairs with 863, a poem by one who did not know of the departure and missed the farewell, since this poem comes from one who left with no time to tell.

Author

Unknown Poet

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

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